(Indeterminate, like me. Think outside the box, but when you step outside the box ... try to keep one foot in)

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Evolution of Pocket Calculator Pricing

A big thanks to Pat Ballew of Pat's Blog for turning me on to Microsoft Mathematics version 4.0, which is now downloadable and free! Pat has a nice write-up about it: here.

The first 2 pictures below are of the pricey Hewlitt-Packard HP-45, which came out in 1973, and the Texas Instruments SR-50, 1974. I was a high school senior and CUA Aerospace Engineering college freshman in 1974. Being a poor college boy, the TI was much cheaper, so that's what I bought.

3 comments:

Steven, Not sure I remember all the details exactly, but around 1970 there was a major issue of one of the "picture" magazines, (Look, or Life or ??). The cover story was "The calculator revolution". The cheapest of the Lot was a casio (I think) four function calculator that didn't have the decimal point.... $70.00..

Sure, I guess I should rename this this the Pocket Scientific Calculator Price Evolution - that is, the first to have trigonometric functions.

I vaguely remember my Dad's insurance agent going goosey about his brand-spanking new-fangled E-LECT-TRON-IC "adding machine" around then. It was the size of an iPad and had a heavy base an a long cord that plugged into a socket, and was the same size as its replacement, the mechanical "adding machine." The big thing was that it was much quieter. And shiny lights in the display. Spacey!

Then again, I remember TELEX machines when I started in the business word, and "carbon copiers" in the school systems when I started as a kindergarten student. And Al Shepard's first suborbital flight.

Thanks for making me feel "old", Pat! lol

At least I don't remember Sputnik. I was but a wee lad of 11 months old at the time. :-)

About Me

My weblog is named "Multiplication by Infinity", because "Division by Zero" was taken ... and "Division by Infinity" makes me feel very small ... Steven Colyer's Musings in Mathematical Physics and its Effects on Humanity and other Lifeforms.... And Pure Mathematics, Computer Science, Applied Mathematics, Experimental Physics, Engineering, Astronomy (not Cosmology so much), Space Exploration and Lunar Colonization.
I am a Rutgers 1979 Mechanical Engineer (Pi Tau Sigma) and Rutgers 1989 MBA.
("I study Politics and War that my children may study Mathematics and Philosophy."
- 2nd U.S. President John Adams)
I've already studied enough Politics and War and Economics for one lifetime, and so it's time for Math and Science